Snowpants

Banana Update

We're snowed in so we made 2 batches of Banana Bread! Owen helped me stir at various points in the recipe and then rewarded himself with licking the spatula when I was putting the pans in the oven.


We still have a lot of bananas left! I might have to make more bread tomorrow! I wonder what the Banana King would do with all of his leftover bananas.

Blame the Banana King

So...Owen and I were grocery shopping yesterday and we were perusing a shelf of produce the store has of fruits and veggies that they need to sell quickly ($1 a bag!). Normally the shelf is empty but this time there were two bags of peppers and about 10 bags of bananas. I was super excited about the peppers since I love them but they're usually $3 a pound, instead I got six for $1! Anyway, I had 5 bananas at home so I didn't need any. I was about to move on until an elderly gentleman started up a conversation with me about (among other things) how great bananas were. You see, he used to know the Banana King of Scranton, PA. Immediately I thought WOW! Apparently I'm impressed with anyone who has "King" in their title. The Banana King used to get bananas shipped in green and then they would ripen up and be sold for 12 cents a hand. Do you know what a "hand" is? Neither did I. He told me. It's about 10 or 12 bananas. After all this and part of the man's life story (He's 81 and told me he goes back to the depression years) I felt I needed to get some bananas. Now I have a lot of bananas. Now I have to make a lot of banana bread. (By the way, I've since googled the Banana King of Scranton, PA and haven't found anything...)


Owen likes to line up his cars. He was very proud of himself so I took a picture:)

New Coffee Table

Happy Birthday!

Owen is 2 today!!! Yea! Here is a picture of each month of 2008 so you can see how much he's grown. If you want to see his picture roundup from last year, click here.

January 2008


February


March


April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Almost 2!

Owen is turning 2 on Saturday so his friends (and moms) at playgroup threw him a party!

I tried to explain that it was rude to be on the phone at the table but apparently Owen had important business to attend to.


Cupcake!

A piano duet to round out the morning!

Spices!

I decided my new project is to use all the spices on my spice rack. I have some that I've had to refill (parsley) and others that I've never used (celery salt?!). Today I hit basil and parsley with this recipe for Lemon Pasta from Zest. I bought the book long ago when I still worked at Williams-Sonoma because it has amazing pictures and it was super cheap (yea for employee discounts!). So this is the first time I've ever used it because I don't usually have zestable fruits around the house that aren't already spoken for. Anyway, I loved this and Owen hated it. It tasted all fancy like something I would get in a restaurant. I can't usually say that about my dinners. Normally we say things like "Yea! That was edible!"

Go Look at Food!

(Banana Bread: chocolate, plain, coconut, walnut/raisin)

I'm sure it's pretty obvious that I like looking at and taking pictures of food. I do my best but I'm not so devoted that I would wait for good lighting or stop myself from eating the food just because I haven't taken a good picture. One of the best websites ever for this is Tastespotting. It's just lots of pictures of pretty food from other people's blogs. If you keep clicking on the links you can get totally lost in it. It's really inspiring though and is fun to use as a giant cookbook.

Shopping with Owen

(old photo from September)

This is how a typical grocery shopping trip with Owen might play out.

Kim: "Owen, let's go to the store and get some groceries."

Owen: "No?"

Kim: "Come on, we can go to Marc's and pick up some milk and bananas."

O: "No?"

K: "You like Marc's, they have the choo choo."

O: "Choo choo!" (Runs toward the door)

After a constant chatter of "choo choo" we arrive at the store

O: "Choo choo? Choo choo?"

K: "Yep, there's the choo choo." (we watch it go around it's track 2 or 3 times and move on)

O: "Choo choo?"

K: "We'll come back and see the choo choo on the way out. Let's go find some bananas."

O: "Nanas!"

(We arrive at the bananas.)

O: "Nanas! Hi!" (He's saying hi to the bananas.)

(Elderly woman focuses in on Owen because she believes he has just said hi to her)

Elderly woman: "Hi!"

(Owen looks at her as if she is insane and refuses to respond. I smile and slowly move away...Then Owen continues his chorus of "choo choo" until we leave. It's fun. I love it.)

2 Cereal Reviews, 1 Picture

We love cereal and this past week we branched out and bought two new kinds. Shocking, right?

1. Jumbo Krispies! I'm not sure what we were thinking. Things are more fun to eat when they are miniaturized, not blown up into gigantic proportions. Of course we fell for it anyway. These are not just large Rice Krispies, they are a completely different cereal. They should have just given it a different name, it doesn't even *snap, crackle, pop* like the original. Does anyone remember French Toast Crunch? It was supposed to be similar to Cinnamon Toast Crunch only the little toast shaped pieces were rock hard and could chip a tooth. This reminds me of that, similar taste only the Krispies are strangely dissolvable when you try to chew. Boo.

2. Blueberry Special K! I don't have a picture because we ate these in about 2 days. Really though, those boxes are so small! Anyway, super yummy and good, I'm pretty sure I like these better than Special K with red berries. Yea!

Sledding

We had great weather for playing in the snow over the weekend! We managed to get Owen out on his sled twice and went around our neighborhood and through the parks dragging him on it. To cap off our fun filled snow days we even took him to a real sledding hill near our house.

On the trails...


We couldn't get Owen's thumbs through his mittens, but that's ok because that means he gave us lots of thumbs up. Don't worry, we fixed his hat soon after this picture (and a billion more times throughout the day) so Owen didn't miss out on much.


Owen took his turn pulling the sled. I tried to hitch a ride but he pretended I was too heavy.


Here's the crazy sledding hill. Pat went down once from the top and then the rest of the times he started off halfway down with Owen. I went once by myself halfway down and almost fell off so I decided to observe the rest of the time. There were people doing crazy things like going down with their dogs or going down backwards (to which I said "that's not a good idea"). On Pat and Owen's last run I was at the top and decided to walk down and meet them. As I was walking down the side of the hill I was completely swept off my feet and landed on my back on a sled going down the hill. The hill is long enough that I was able to assess if I was hurt, wonder where the person who had been on the sled was, look up, have a conversation with the kid I was now riding a sled with about whether or not we were hurt and then enjoy the rest of the way down. Good thing he was going down backwards or I would have landed right on him. It was pretty funny, Pat and the kids grandpa (who sought me out to apologize) both thought it could have been on America's Funniest Home Videos. Too bad we didn't get it on tape!

At the Zoo!

Owen and I went to the Rainforest last week with a couple friends and had a really great time. Most of my pictures are of the back of his head because when we wasn't staring at a glass case he was running off to the next exhibit. It's fun that he's old enough now to get excited and recognize the animals.


Owen meets a turtle.

Have a Seat!

We've expanded our seating! Yea! As anyone who has been to our house knows, our previous couch fit 3 people and everyone else was left sitting on the floor (not very hospitable). We decided to upgrade and got this new couch and a loveseat (to be delivered at a later date). It came with an astronomical number of pillows though. 5?! Seriously!? Do people not use their couches to actually sit?

Book Reviews

We managed to get some reading in while Pat was home on vacation and ended up with some pretty good books! I thought I should share in case anyone was looking for something to read:)

1. The Story of Christmas --This was a pretty good book as far as the story goes but the illustrations were a bit...dated? In the picture of the "present day" family the mom has a bowl cut, the little girl has a crazy high feathered hairdo and the dad has a creepy looking mustache. Mary and Joseph, on the other hand, are very fashionable.

2. Snowmen at Night--This book was cute but I do wonder whether it could actually make snowmen seem scary to a little kid since they come to life and run around town. As an added bonus there are hidden pictures on every page...too bad I can't find them and it's driving me crazy.

3. Outliers--Yes, you should read all of Malcolm Gladwell's books, this one included. Everything in it is interesting and it's a super fast read because of that. It's all about the little details that contribute to a person's success and they aren't what you think.

4. Twilight--Pat got me this for Christmas and I was glad because secretly I wanted to read it to figure out what they hype was about but I wouldn't have ever bought it for myself since I thought the story sounded silly. It was so good that I read it in a day (while Pat read the Watchmen) and spent the rest of the vacation searching for the sequels in paperback. Now I have to read the whole series...

5. Watchmen--Again, Pat read this in about a day so I know he really liked it. I picked it up, read a couple pages, got confused, and put it down for a couple days. I got bored and picked it up and started it over again, read more and claimed my dislike for it. Then I picked it up again and got so immersed in it that I had to tell Pat to stop talking because I was almost finished! That's how you know you've got a good book, right? When there is an immediate need to ignore the real person in the room? Anyway, it takes a bit to get into it but I haven't read any other graphic novels so maybe my lack of experience was the problem:)

6. Zen Shorts--Maybe this shouldn't count because I had already read it before Jamie got it for me for Christmas (thanks!) but I think this book and Muth's other one about a panda named Stillwater (Zen Ties) are so great and calming and have really good illustrations. This is one of those "not just for kids" books, which is good because when you're reading the same book to Owen a few times a day (at his request) you want to like it:)

More Fun Pictures

Diana and Adam visited!

Owen in the middle of being tickled

Me and Jamie at PG

Pat and Nigel enjoying the festivities at Grandmas

More fun at Grandmas:)